Salafism both of the Saudi, and the
of radical, orientation are being fired-up in
Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon [8], Egypt, north
Africa, the Sahara, Nigeria, and the horn of
Africa. No wonder Russia is concerned: Central
Asia [9] is unlikely to prove immune either. Its
leaders do recall, only too well, the impact on
Russia's backyard, of that earlier "stirring"
associated with Afghanistan.

They find it
difficult to understand how Europeans can again
"look aside" from what is occurring for the
transient domestic "pleasures" of been seen to
"take-down dictators", when this new radical
stirring across the Middle East, Africa and
tentatively Central Asia, is happening right on
Europe's own doorstep - just across the
Mediterranean.

The evolving cultural shift
has another dimension - one first

pinpointed by the
Turkish foreign minister more than a year ago: The
"Awakening", the minister said, marks the end of a
historical chapter of the divisions imposed on
Muslims by the great powers when they fragmented,
and divided up the old provinces of [Sunni]
Ottoman rule. Ahmet Davutoglu saw the "Awakening"
principally as a "coming together" again of
Muslims - an "undoing" of an historic
fragmentation.

Not surprisingly, this
theme of a pan-Muslim community, and the
reclaiming of the Sunni sphere, is increasingly
heard today. [10] Davutoglu did not mention the
word umma ; or community of believers, but
many now are. And it is a discourse that greatly
frightens the many in the region , who do not want
to be labelled or treated as "minorities"; and
thus forfeit their self-identity as equal citizens
- with all its eerie echoes of the Ottoman Sunni
Muslim hegemony. [11]

This cultural shift
toward re-imagining a wider Muslim polity (no one
for now is suggesting dissolving their own
nation-states, although the prime minister of
Tunisia has suggested he anticipates the beginning
of the Fourth Caliphate) holds important
implications for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
too.

Over recent years we have heard the
Israelis emphasize their demand for recognition of
a specifically Jewish nation-state, rather than
for an Israeli State, per se. A Jewish state that
in principle would remain open to any Jew seeking
to return: a creation of a Jewish umma, as it
were. Now it seems we have, in the western half of
the Middle East, at least, a mirror trend, asking
for the re-instatement of a wider Sunni nation -
representing the 'undoing' of the last remnants of
the colonial era.

What will this mean for
Palestine? Will the demand for Palestinians' legal
rights to a nation-state, be affected too by this
cultural impulse towards a wider Islamic nation
and polity? Will we see Palestinian rights ,
grounded in the nation-state concept gradually
metamorphosize into a more explicit, meta-national
Islamic aspiration? Will we see the struggle
increasing epitomized as a primordial struggle
between Jewish and Islamic religious symbols -
between al-Aqsa and the Temple Mount?

It
seems that both Israel and its surrounding terrain
are marching in step toward language which takes
them far away from the underlying, largely secular
concepts by which this conflict traditionally has
been conceptualized. What will be the consequence
as the conflict, by its own logic, becomes a clash
of religious poles?

This prospect may
sound gloomy to some - perhaps even a little
threatening - but this is largely because the
Middle East is so often approached without any
real homework being done; without regard for
international law; without regard for the UN
charter, and without regard for the rights of
nations to be themselves in their own way.

Inherently unsound and inflated Western
expectations - when they implode - always have
resulted in the ubiquitous call for "something to
be done" which now has come to mean "something
being done" through by-passing international law,
sovereignty and the UN, and dictated by an
Orwellian, self-selecting, "Friends of " grouping
- however disastrous the consequences of "that
something" may turn out to be.

Syria has
become the crucible of these external coercions;
with events in Syria [12] being defined by this
hugely potent deployed Gulf power for the purpose
of building their "new Middle East"; rather than
being defined by some over-simplistic narrative of
reform versus repression, which sheers Syria away
from its all-important context.

Many
Syrians see the struggle now not so much as one of
reform - though all Syrians want that - but now as
a more primordial, elemental fight to preserve the
notion of Syria itself, a deep-rooted
self-identity amidst fears that touch on the most
sensitive, inflamed nerves within the Islamic
world. Not surprisingly for many, security now
trumps reform.

Undoubtedly the region is
entering a profound and turbulent struggle to
define its future, and that of Islam. But this
phase may not prove as defining as some may think
(or hope): Whilst the Gulf has pursued its
objectives a outrance, it is also
vulnerable.

The Saudi king may aspire to
unify the Sunni world to his vision, but he is
unlikely to succeed in this way: his harsh
vendetta towards Assad is not unifying the region,
it is souring it; and the recourse to militant
Sunnism is fomenting civil, violent struggle in
many states: in the Levant, and beyond, it is
already pitting Sunni against Sunni.

Syrian self-identity, as for many others
in the region, was never a sectarian one, but was
rooted in a belonging to one of the great nations
of the region with a "model of society" which had
"more religious freedom and tolerance than in
any other Arab country". [13]

Syrians did
not view themselves as primarily identified by
sect. Wahhabi-style sectarian intolerance is
foreign to the Levant, even to Levant Sunnism. We
are already witnessing, in Egypt, for example,
push-back against movements seen to be motivated
primarily by considerations of sect - even from
those who see themselves as Islamist. They seek
not another type of strait-jacket. The question is
being asked: has the Brotherhood switched from
"patience" to "domination"? There is a sense now
of something fundamentally lost: with this
authoritarian re-culturization - where now is any
real reforming, revolutionary zeal?

Alastair Crooke is founder and
director of Conflicts Forum and is a former
adviser to the former European Union foreign
policy chief Javier Solana from 1997-2003.